Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Cork South West, Fianna Fail)
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450. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the proportion of employees in his Department or in organisations under its remit registered disabled. [1855/18]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The Disability Act 2005 requires public bodies to promote and support the employment of people with disabilities and to achieve a target of 3% of staff with disabilities. In this Department in 2016 the percentage of employees with a disability under the definition of the Disability Act 2005 is 3.94%

Under relevant legislation, aegis bodies of my Department are required to provide my Department's monitoring Committee with data on the number of people with disabilities employed in respect of the preceding year for the inclusion in the overall report to National Disability Authority. 

Of the eighteen bodies required to report under the legislation, thirteen have reported 3% or higher of their staff as having a disability and overall compliance was up from 3.8% in 2015 to 4% in 2016

Under the Comprehensive Employment Strategy for People with Disabilities, which was published in 2015, the Government committed to progressively increasing the public employment target from 3% to 6% and my department and its agencies will continue to work to achieve the new targets.